4 ms·

There might be an escape velocity to this: as technology evolves it is easier to clean pollution, and perhaps the innovation moves faster than the added polluti

There might be an escape velocity to this: as technology evolves it is easier to clean pollution, and perhaps the innovation moves faster than the added pollution. So maybe the best time to start cleaning is 30 years into the future?

gruez 5y ago
>There might be an escape velocity to this There's a better term for this rather than "escape velocity", because a similar problem exists for interstellar travel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calcu...
- sgregnt 5y ago
  Thank you for sharing!
anyfoo 5y ago
That's like saying the best time to start saving for retirement is 30 years into the future, because by then investment returns may be higher.
- sgregnt 5y ago
  It's a nice saying... but may I push back? Maybe it's like saying instead of insisting to keep a positive balance, take a debt and go study in a callege. Then profit for the rest of your life?
  - anyfoo 5y ago
    Not even going into the issue that we don't have time to "go to college" before this needs to be fixed, what actually is the "college" in your analogy? And the balance is already negative.
    - sgregnt 5y ago
      Restrictions on pollution would hinder economic development, which in turn would hinder scientific progress, so we will not invent new effective methods to fight pollution. "Debt" is unrestrained economic development, "college" is the research and added economic capacity that comes out of it. And profit are the new methods for removing pollution. But I don't necessarily believe in it. The point here is that, IMHO, for every, motto-like, populist data-less claim why we should fight pollution, one can easily come up with equivalently populist data less claim why we should not bother with clime change. In isolation from supporting data these two claims are equally unsubstantiated. If there is some concrete data to share please do so, otherwise it's an echo chamber where people would just upvote what they agree with and downvote what they disagree, without any concern for the actual facts brought out in the claim, it's not a argument taking place in the comments it just people preferences showing up in their votings.
      - anyfoo 5y ago
        Here is the data I know about, I don't think it's "a populist claim without data": https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
        sgregnt 5y ago
        Thanks for sharing! What I heard from the news is that they claim the temperature will raise by 1.5 degree in a near future. Unfortunatly I didn't read the report and don't know what are the proposed policy steps. If you or someone else can summarize (without populism or moto like claims), what's their proposed solutions are and what are the risks, that might be of a big service to the community. Since then we ca exchange data based opinions if the proposed solution seems viable or not and that can move a discussion forward. Last time, I had a vacation and was able to listen to a in depth discussion of political steps to solve climate change was this https://youtu.be/nNIcHIjFNxs https://youtu.be/nNIcHIjFNxs At the time my impression was that it is very hard to make a real progress in this.
minikites 5y ago
We're metaphorically traveling in a car that's smoking and making noise, it's not going to get cheaper or easier to fix later.
- sgregnt 5y ago
  Every complicated problem has a simple solution that is wrong. It is just to say, your metaphora might be beautify and simple but in your comment there is nothing to add about how valid is it.

gruez 5y ago

>There might be an escape velocity to this There's a better term for this rather than "escape velocity", because a similar problem exists for interstellar travel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calcu...

sgregnt 5y ago
Thank you for sharing!

anyfoo 5y ago

That's like saying the best time to start saving for retirement is 30 years into the future, because by then investment returns may be higher.

sgregnt 5y ago
It's a nice saying... but may I push back? Maybe it's like saying instead of insisting to keep a positive balance, take a debt and go study in a callege. Then profit for the rest of your life?
- anyfoo 5y ago
  Not even going into the issue that we don't have time to "go to college" before this needs to be fixed, what actually is the "college" in your analogy? And the balance is already negative.
  - sgregnt 5y ago
    Restrictions on pollution would hinder economic development, which in turn would hinder scientific progress, so we will not invent new effective methods to fight pollution. "Debt" is unrestrained economic development, "college" is the research and added economic capacity that comes out of it. And profit are the new methods for removing pollution. But I don't necessarily believe in it. The point here is that, IMHO, for every, motto-like, populist data-less claim why we should fight pollution, one can easily come up with equivalently populist data less claim why we should not bother with clime change. In isolation from supporting data these two claims are equally unsubstantiated. If there is some concrete data to share please do so, otherwise it's an echo chamber where people would just upvote what they agree with and downvote what they disagree, without any concern for the actual facts brought out in the claim, it's not a argument taking place in the comments it just people preferences showing up in their votings.
    - anyfoo 5y ago
      Here is the data I know about, I don't think it's "a populist claim without data": https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
      - sgregnt 5y ago
        Thanks for sharing! What I heard from the news is that they claim the temperature will raise by 1.5 degree in a near future. Unfortunatly I didn't read the report and don't know what are the proposed policy steps. If you or someone else can summarize (without populism or moto like claims), what's their proposed solutions are and what are the risks, that might be of a big service to the community. Since then we ca exchange data based opinions if the proposed solution seems viable or not and that can move a discussion forward. Last time, I had a vacation and was able to listen to a in depth discussion of political steps to solve climate change was this https://youtu.be/nNIcHIjFNxs https://youtu.be/nNIcHIjFNxs At the time my impression was that it is very hard to make a real progress in this.

minikites 5y ago

We're metaphorically traveling in a car that's smoking and making noise, it's not going to get cheaper or easier to fix later.

sgregnt 5y ago
Every complicated problem has a simple solution that is wrong. It is just to say, your metaphora might be beautify and simple but in your comment there is nothing to add about how valid is it.